


outside, in formaldehyde

by mickleborger



Series: and see the sky turn bright [2]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Gen, POV Third Person, feros, major character death is just an offscreen callout for the me2 prologue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-20 17:57:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14266509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mickleborger/pseuds/mickleborger
Summary: feros is a lot of tedious surprises for everyone





	outside, in formaldehyde

**Author's Note:**

> (Phideaux, "Formaldehyde")

There is a krogan with them and somehow, for some reason, this is not what's getting to her.  The krogan is hulking and a little too deadpan for Arcelia to not pick up on the sneer, but what really bugs her -- _really_ gets in her face and under her skin -- is the little elfin face peeking out from behind the krogan, pale and freckled and framed by a mess of orange hair hacked into something that almost looks regulation.  "Jeannie", she'd heard the name called (by the commander, the tightly-wound brunette who barely makes eye contact before glancing back behind Fai Dan again, watching for something Arcelia can't blame them for watching; the krogan calls her 'pyjak' in a dazzling show of creativity, but it's hard to want to correct him this one time).  She also remembers names like Joey, Jane, and Jenny, all said with that same little smirk she sees alight that ridiculously pale face now as it turns towards her.

Fai Dan is sputtering and as she turns to the conversation she bites her tongue; these are the only reinforcements.  A colony under attack and the Alliance sends them two dolled-up mercenaries and an explosive-looking spacer to help.  The buzzing behind her face gets worse and she does not yell as loud as she wants to, but, _god_ , does she want to.

Commander _Shepard, the name is Shepard_ is apologetic but a little too wide-eyed for Arcelia to not pick up on how hard they, also, are fighting to not yell too loud.  They're still holding part of a geth that got too close, unbothered by the sparks.  Arcelia thinks that maybe something behind their face is buzzing, too, but clearly it is the wrong sort of buzzing.  She does not, she realizes, much envy the geth up in the tower.  She definitely doesn't pity them, but she's pretty goddamn glad to not be in their-- geth don't wear shoes.  Whatever.  Doesn't matter.

"Jeannie" finishes pretending to adjust something on her rifle and beams broadly as Shepard and the krogan file out toward the stairs.  Arcelia summons her best scowl even through the haze.

\---

Even though the rain and the fog, Arcelia can track the Normandy's team by way of that mop of red hair, a  goddamn beacon of color in a mess of greys and greens and browns.  You'd think, once again, that it would be the krogan -- the krogan who has now threatened to eat two colonists, though Shepard's stare and Jeannie's grin suggest he is not very serious about it -- but no.  No, it's that perky ginger sniper who keeps bouncing on the balls of her feet, watching the camp with a half-lidded ease that contrasts sharply with Shepard's jerky movements but that Arcelia knows sees just as much.

Neither of them has actually stopped moving, Arcelia realizes: with Jeannie bouncing, and Shepard twitching like a raptor, it really is only the krogan (Wrex, she's managed to figure out) who sits still, like a giant old boulder with teeth.  She can't decide if this makes her more or less worried about him.  Maybe the humans feel something he doesn't.

Shepard comes to speak with her and it's all she can do to keep herself from snapping, the itch in her teeth unbearable.  Jeannie is adjusting something on her rifle for real this time; Arcelia can tell by how the bouncing has stopped.  The teenage hooligan who was obviously lying when she introduced herself as Jane and who smiled as she did it was sort of bouncy, too.  Maybe it has nothing to do with the thing under the colony at all.

\---

Arcelia comes to with something definitely not meant to be used as a pillow under her head and the groaning bustle of a worn-out camp around her.  She hears Mary's voice somewhere nearby, and a soft murmur in response.  The buzzing behind her eyes is gone but this feels a bit too much like the morning after an entire bottle of wine for her to want to open them just yet.

When she does, she isn't really surprised to catch a flash of red out of the corner of her eye, though it's caked in places in a greenish slime that she is quickly deciding she doesn't really have questions about.  She sits up, carefully, grateful for the solid wall behind her.  Jeannie watches her with her dazed scouting stare and wordlessly hands her a bottle of water.

Shepard is walking in circles in front of that scummy ExoGeni representative, a dark-haired woman standing crisply nearby, looking wary.  Shepard is not yelling.  Shepard is _very pointedly not yelling_.  The crew member next to them keeps her eyes narrow and on Jeong, but Arcela recognizes the same sort of panoramic stare Jeannie has.  Arcelia takes a sip of water and winces.

"Clocked you kind of hard there, Martinez.  Sorry."

Jeannie has never once in her life raised her voice, Arcelia thinks, but at least she's turned her head her way now, not meeting her gaze so much as contemplating Arcelia's ear -- where her scalp must be torn, she thinks, judging by the pulling sensation of a bandage she refuses to touch -- with a guilty sort of sympathy.  Arcelia feels a bruise on her arm where she fired something wrong and scrambles for the memory of a wily little criminal dodging behind a column and lobbing a well-aimed rock.  She is realizing with not too little delay that not all of these burns on Shepard's team are from geth weapons.

Shepard, in the distance, has stopped pacing and instead gotten very much in Jeong's face, still not shouting but by what grace Arcelia can't guess.  She notices a band of copper and grey on a chain next to Jeannie's dog tags and thinks that maybe Jeannie can.

"Usually run a tighter ship than this," she mumbles, and Jeannie grunts with a smile that could be sadder.  There is only one shrouded corpse on the field.

\---

She knows before the pilot signals that someone is coming, because Gavin far up on the watchtower saw the black blot in the sky, too still to be a bird.  And they all know who it is, because they have all heard the news. and because Arcelia and Jeannie traded addresses after the Normandy crew left them and the remains of a terrible ancient lichen in the capable hands of a terrified ExoGeni lawyer and a suspiciously green asari commando.

 _I've given my four years and Avery_ , the final message had read.  _Fuck it._

The brooding turian she lands with is a surprise, as is the unmarked ship, but it doesn't matter because neither of them is staying.  He looks like he's trying to piece together what hugs are for, still.  Based on the way he rolls first his shoulders, then his eyes, Jeannie has just warned him to not do anything she wouldn't do.  Arcelia thinks of one particularly vandalized mansion in the suburbs and snickers to herself.

Jeannie stops beneath the arch to the docks and stares up the stairs, her hair unnaturally vibrant in the glaucuous fog.  She looks like she knows, logically, that she will not break if she makes a sound, but is afraid of being wrong.  Arcelia stares ahead with her and waits in silence.

It seems as if the air has changed with the plodding on of the day by the time Jeannie finally looks down, heaves her shoulders, and sighs out a puff of air that sounds like _...well!_ , and shifts her line of sight toward Arcelia.  Arcelia, torn between putting her arm around Jeannie's shoulders and giving her an answering _well!_ , finds herself fighting back a nervous smile.  She opens her mouth a couple times and feels all the more lost for it, but eventually settles on a low whisper:

"Can you believe the turrets have broken down _again_?"

And Jeannie does not have any smiles in her today but somewhere between the tilt of her jaw and the widening of her eyes her face lights up.


End file.
